Tribune Opinion: Weld County commissioners are right to take authority away from Sean Conway

A crowd gathers in this 2013 file photo as the Weld County commissioners begin a meeting at the Weld County Administration Building at 1150 O St. in Greeley. A long-simmering dispute between commissioners turned public this week with the threat of a lawsuit.

It pains us to say this, but we think four Weld County commissioners are right to take supervisory authority away from their colleague Sean Conway.

We think Conway has had his moments as a successful commissioner. We had some reservations about our endorsement of him over his Democratic opponent, and we called him out before the election for trying to defend his niece, Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes, in a meeting with the Weld County Council. We also congratulated him for several successes over the years (which we credit to all five commissioners): the Bright Futures program, expansion of Weld County Road 49, and being a driving force in the coalition to acquire more local, state and federal funding for Interstate 25 improvements.

But Conway's actions in recent weeks are troubling. His accusations and attacks on four other county commissioners are hollow and lack substance. It appears his temper, which we and others in Weld government have witnessed, has gotten the better of him in a flare-up with a county employee. She has resigned and filed a workplace harassment complaint against him.

He has lost the trust of the other four county commissioners, others on county staff and some in his own Republican Party. His threat to sue other county commissioners because he claims to be a whistleblower — which to us appears to be a lot of testosterone chest-pounding with very little substance — is a waste of time and energy. It also brings ridicule to Weld County.

Conway is the current chairman pro-tem of the county commissioners, which puts him in line to be the chairman next year. (A different commissioner is voted to the chairperson's seat every year). We don't think he has earned that role and we support the four other commissioners' resolve to give somebody else that responsibility. Given the recent accusation by a county employee, it also makes sense, for now, to deny Conway any oversight of county departments. This also has been a tradition among commissioners — each of them is given oversight for a calendar year of a county department such as public works, human services, etc. Those assignments also change every year.

What has brought all this on?

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Well, we're not exactly sure. We tend to find a lot of credibility in the argument of all four commissioners, and many others in county government, who say bluntly it began with issues involving Koppes.

"I think it all goes back to the very beginning of him somehow trying to protect Carly. … It all goes back to that," Commissioner Chairman Mike Freeman said.

"It all circles back to her (Koppes)," Commissioner Steve Moreno said.

Among other things, Conway has accused the other commissioners of having illegal meetings. The "straw that broke the camel's back," he says, was a planned meeting with Xcel Energy to discuss what the company calls its future strategy, "Our Energy Future." Conway claimed the meeting was unethical because Xcel had plans for a project that had been or was going to be submitted to county officials.

But a whole host of others say otherwise. All four county commissioners say there are no specific plans submitted to the county, and that it was similar to other meetings held over many years with large companies that do business in the county. Weld Attorney Bruce Barker, who attended the meeting, says it was above-board.

Conway's claim it would have been an illegal meeting had he not raised a red flag does not hold water. Listen to Xcel Energy: "We're not amateurs," said Jerome Davis, regional vice president of Xcel Energy. "We know if we have a pending application in front of political officials, we know we can't have contact with them, and we are also very clear about how we go about things, in being transparent, that we don't have the appearance that we might be doing something (wrong)."

Davis added Xcel has had similar meetings with several other sets of county commissioners around the state. "We know the rules," he said. "We do not engage with any political official when we have pending applications."

If that is Conway's most egregious example of an illegal meeting, the final straw, as he says, we have to wonder about most of his other accusations.

We would agree, always, that county commissioners need to follow the letter and the spirit of the law when it comes to public meetings. The county's business indeed should always be conducted in public. It's been a longstanding concern about county commissioners, not just in Weld but throughout the state, that they easily can make decisions just by walking down the hall and talking to each other, since they are full-time employees, without a hint of a public discussion or vote.

But we have found no credible evidence of an illegal meeting or unethical behavior by Weld commissioners.

We're never one to suggest every vote of elected bodies such as commissioners, a school board or a city council should be unanimous. Respectful differences of opinion and robust debate is good for democracy. But Conway has pushed his differences with other commissioners to a far different level than a robust debate.

There's an awful lot of he said/she said bouncing around the community and in county offices over this kerfuffle. To the best of our ability in our news stories, we have reported those back-and-forth accusations with factual accuracy, balance and fairness.

But on this page in the paper, we express our opinion. We take sides. We think Conway has displayed unacceptable behavior in recent months. He has brought this on himself, and now he must pay the consequences until he figures out how to work with others. Filing lawsuits or legal claims won't do that, and we think other county commissioners are entirely right to strip him of any authority in 2017.